A quality-of-life mod for PAYDAY 2 that outlines every keycard on the map in your color of choice — and stops highlighting once you're carrying one, so the glow is only there when you actually need a card.
Special story keycards get the full treatment too: on heists like First World Bank and Diamond Heist, the manager's card stays outlined across the entire map, through walls and unloaded areas, from the moment it exists.
- Download the latest release (or use the green Code → Download ZIP button).
- Extract the
Smart Keycard Highlightfolder into yourPAYDAY 2/mods/directory. - Configure under Options → Mod Options → Smart Keycard Highlight.
Requires SuperBLT. Updates are delivered automatically through SuperBLT's updater.
- Colored outline on every keycard — generic cards, and the special story cards across the heists that have them (First World Bank incl. the vault cards and the manager's card, Diamond Heist, Golden Grin Casino, White House, Border Crossing, Boiling Point, Prison Nightmare, Beneath the Mountain, hotel keycards, and more).
- Smart auto-unhighlight — highlights turn off while you're carrying a card and return once you've used it (toggleable).
- Crossmap outlines for story keycards — the FWB manager card and the Diamond Heist card render their outline through the whole map.
- Special cards highlight from heist start, not from the moment the game decides to point at them.
- Two categories, two colors — normal keycards (default blue) and "lost" collectible keycards (default green, off by default), each with its own toggle and color.
- Fully custom colors — RGB sliders, hex input, live preview.
- Proximity mode (optional) — only highlight cards within a set range.
- Toggle keybind with optional on-screen notification (duration and color configurable).
- Decorative, non-pickable cards (e.g. on Firestarter day 2 and GO Bank) are deliberately excluded.
- With the mod disabled, cards show no outline at all — including the cards that vanilla ships with a permanent built-in glow.
Options → Mod Options → Smart Keycard Highlight
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Enable Highlights | Master switch. |
| Highlight Color | RGB sliders + hex input with live preview for normal keycards. |
| Lost Keycards | Separate toggle + color for the collectible "lost" cards (off by default). |
| Proximity Mode / Range | Only highlight cards near you. |
| Auto-Unhighlight | Pause highlights while you're carrying a card. |
| Keybind Notifications | On-screen message when using the toggle keybind — duration and color configurable. |
The toggle keybind is set under Options → Mod Keybinds → Toggle Keycard Highlights (works in-heist).
Safe in multiplayer — other players don't need the mod and are unaffected by it.
- Plays nice with the other Smart Highlight mods.
- 64-bit engine update: a compatibility update will follow when PAYDAY 2's 64-bit engine upgrade and its SuperBLT port release.
The Lua code in this mod was written by AI under my direction — I designed, specified, and play-tested everything by hand (including a fairly deep excavation of the engine's rendering internals to make the crossmap outlines possible). Hosted here on GitHub, where AI-assisted projects are welcome.
Free to use, edit, and reupload — no credit required. Consider the code yours to learn from, fork, or build on.